Divine Relay Video Requirements

Problem

Publishing Kind 34236 (short-form video) events to divine relays fails with "blocked: event rejected by relay policy" even though the events comply with NIP-71 spec.

Context / Trigger Conditions

• Error message: blocked: event rejected by relay policy
• Kind 0 (profile) events publish successfully to the same relay
• Kind 34236 events fail on divine relays (wss://relay.poc.dvines.org, wss://relay.dvines.org)
• Events that work on other relays fail on divine relays

Root Cause

The divine relay (funnelcake) has additional validation beyond NIP-71:

From divine-funnelcake/crates/relay/src/relay.rs:554-564:

// divine.video requires thumbnail for all videos (stricter than NIP-71)
// Accept: thumb tag, thumbnail tag, image tag, or imeta with image field
let has_thumb = event.get_tag("thumb").is_some()
    || event.get_tag("thumbnail").is_some()
    || event.get_tag("image").is_some()
    || has_imeta_with_image(&event);

if !has_thumb {
    // Event rejected
}

Solution

Ensure video events include a thumbnail in one of these formats:

1. Inside imeta tag (preferred - NIP-92 compliant):

   ["imeta", "url https://...", "m video/mp4", "image https://thumbnail.jpg", ...]
   

2. Standalone tag:

   ["thumb", "https://thumbnail.jpg"]
   ["thumbnail", "https://thumbnail.jpg"]
   ["image", "https://thumbnail.jpg"]
   

Getting Thumbnails from Blossom

Blossom (media.divine.video) auto-generates thumbnails for uploaded videos:

• Thumbnail URL: https://media.divine.video/{video_sha256}.jpg
• Generation is async - may take a few seconds after upload
• Check with HEAD request before assuming availability

Verification

1. Ensure imeta tag contains image https://... field
2. Test publication: nak event -k 34236 ... wss://relay.poc.dvines.org
3. Verify with: nak req -k 34236 -a {pubkey} --limit 1 wss://relay.poc.dvines.org

Example

// Build imeta with thumbnail
const imetaParts = [
  `url ${videoUpload.url}`,
  "m video/mp4",
  `image ${videoUpload.url}.jpg`,  // Blossom thumbnail URL
  "dim 480x480",
  `x ${videoUpload.sha256}`,
  "duration 6"
];
tags.push(["imeta", ...imetaParts]);

Notes

• This is divine-specific - other relays may accept videos without thumbnails
• The generic error message doesn't indicate which validation failed
• To debug relay rejections: read the relay source code for policy details
• Other divine relay validations in the same file:
  • Required d tag for addressable events
  • Required title tag
  • Required video source (imeta or url tag)

Debugging Strategy

When getting generic "relay policy" rejections:

1. Test different event kinds (Kind 0 vs target kind) to isolate the issue
2. Check if the relay codebase is available (divine repos are at ~/code/divine/)
3. Search for "reject" or "blocked" in the relay handler code
4. Look for validation beyond standard NIP requirements

Related Files

• Relay validation: divine-funnelcake/crates/relay/src/relay.rs
• Allowed kinds seed: divine-funnelcake/database/migrations/000015_seed_allowed_kinds.up.sql
• Relay config: divine-funnelcake/crates/relay/src/config.rs